What You Can Learn About Usability From Google

Web usability is always a hot topic. Companies are always looking for ways to tweak their websites to make them more user-friendly so that they will get more conversions.

In my opinion, anyone who is concerned with web usability should take a look at Google’s homepage at Google.com. There, you can gain many lessons in what makes a website simple and easy to use.

Look at the image above. There’s not much to it at all, right? It has the Google name, a search bar, and two buttons. That’s it. It’s as simple as it gets.

It’s no wonder Google is the most visited website on the internet. Sure, people love the search results it provides, but Google’s simplicity is what has caused it to win out over Yahoo!.

When you go to the Yahoo! homepage, you’re presented with so many options, you have no idea where to look or what to do. It’s overwhelming and distracting. It causes choice paralysis. Too many options can definitely be a bad thing, so keep that in mind when designing your website. Each page should have a specific purpose and a specific action that you want the user to take.

That’s where Google’s homepage succeeds. The only action they want you to take is to type something in the search bar and get some results. That’s it.

Simplicity is the name of the game. The easier you can make things for your website visitors, the more conversions you’ll get. Don’t ask them to do several different things, and don’t make them dig to find what it is that they’re looking for. Remove any unnecessary elements from the page that aren’t contributing to the goal of converting the visitor.

In short, I’ll sum it up with the popular phrase “Keep it simple, stupid!”

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